Pebble Beach or Cypress Point: Which golf course is better?

Recently, I had the opportunity to play Pebble for the second time. (You can read my review here.) I’ve also had the pleasure to take on Cypress Point.

It seems lately I hear a lot of folks favoring Cypress Point, which used to be part of the Bing Crosby and AT&T Pro-Am, over Pebble. But I’m not so sure I agree with that.

Perhaps Pebble has taken a little bit of a hit lately because of the way green fees have escalated the last 20 years. Indeed, since staying on property for a couple of nights is generally a requirement to play there, it could easily cost more than $1,000 to tee it up at Pebble.

But R.J. Harper, Pebble Beach’s senior VP of golf operations and general chairman of the upcoming U.S. Open (June 17-20), made a good point. He said that if you asked the average golfer what three courses would be on their bucket list, Pebble Beach would almost always rank in the top three with the Old Course at St. Andrews and Augusta National being the other two.

Cypress Point, of course, is always near or on the top of any magazine’s national rankings list, but golfers probably think of Pebble Beach first because of its exposure.

And why shouldn’t they? While Cypress Point has a lot of great holes - most notably the par-3 16th over the ocean - Pebble also has plenty of great holes. And if you compare the two finishing holes on the two courses, there is no comparison; Pebble Beach’s 18th wins hands-down.

Still Cypress Point is devoid of the commercial nature of Pebble Beach. There are no tourists there; it’s a pure golf experience.

But if you told me I could only play one more round of golf on the Peninsula, it would probably be Pebble Beach. But that’s probably because I just had a great experience at Pebble. Maybe I need another crack at Cypress Point.

The Accidental Golfer (AKA Mike Bailey) has spent more than 15 years writing about the game that has brought him unbridled joy and temporary bouts of insanity. Now a senior writer at WorldGolf.com, Bailey is a former senior editor for PGA Magazine, senior writer for Golfweek's SuperNEWS and Turfnet magazines and past president of the Texas Golf Writers Association. He has covered every facet of golf, including the PGA and LPGA Tours, equipment and course architecture, as well as the bane of his golfing existence: instruction. The last has led to at least 30 different golf swings, which all feel different but appear to his playing companions to be the same. Mike is on Twitter at
@AccidentlGolfer.